Amentep

New Thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97299-romance-and-sex-and-companions-catch-all-topic/

Previous Thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91930-player-sexual-companion/ Last Post: Honestly, i'd rather not have any romance in the game at all, if that's the other option. Besides, Grieving Mother isn't in Deadfire, so who even cares about romancing companions if you can't romance her?!

Sure... ...wait! What?

Forums over the post count. New thread here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97294-josh-sawyers-tweets-and-teasers-part-iv/

1st thread - https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/92515-josh-sawyers-tweets-and-teasers/?hl=%2Btweets+%2Band+%2Bteasers 2nd thread - https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/96213-josh-sawyers-tweets-and-teasers-part-2/page-37?do=findComment&comment=1989066 3rd Thread - https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/96541-josh-sawyers-tweets-and-teasers-part-iii/ Discuss. Please refrain from asking others to show you the way home because you had a little drink an hour ago too often.

If you have contacted the official support, please post the date that you did. My experience is it can take up to three business days to get eyes on an issue; since you posted this on the 2nd if you emailed them also on the 2nd, this would be the third day so hopefully you'll hear back today. That said, if its been an inordinate amount of time since you contacted support, we can see if attention can be drawn to your issue.

Also a reminder to stick to the arguments and not discussing each other.

I have trouble with restarting anyhow. Create a character, and them I'm like "no, what if I did this instead!" Pretty much the first week or so of any new game is dicey if I get an idea for a different character. I might end up restarting dozens of times. Usually I can settle on one, but I was just never 100% happy with them last time I played DAI.

Yes. Edit - the link you were using was the page on imgur and not the gif itself. https://imgur.com/gallery/ZcARSq8 vs https://i.imgur.com/ZcARSq8.gif So image tags around the .gif

I lost my Solas romance save anyhow. Last time I tried to play it I couldn't get into my character, I kept restarting, it was a mess.

They seem to have spent a lot of time making sure the lead lady spins that staff around, at least.

Our sacred cow is Volo. Praised be His Name. Can we get a refund? Asking for a friend.

One of these days I'm going to finish Tresspasser.

It is. As is Gerard Depardieu on planes. I thought we were trying to be funny.

Removing quality of writing issues, I think people feel the romance content can take resources away from making the character interesting / responsive if the PC doesn't romance them. So if the character has 1000 lines of dialogue, but 800 are tied to the romance, it means the non-romance player gets a character with only 200 lines.* *I have no clue how many lines of dialogue characters actually have. Yeah I think they're worth a little effort because they give some bang for their buck as the saying goes. There's several games I wouldn't have looked twice at but bought because it had a romance in it. Of course there's the too much of a good thing saying Since I like characters, I enjoy exploring the relationships between the party (PC-NPC, NPC-NPC, whatever).

I think that's part of the rationale for those who don't like romances, because they figure create one single path for a relationship and put the resources elsewhere and that as they are they're not worth the resource effort.

Again, that's just an example. I don't mind that one specifically (since you'd have people reloading every battle to protect their character - if it was a breakable moment it'd need to be an extremely high number to cause more than an expression of concern over the situation with a lot of ways to mitigate/reset the counter), but its an example of how the NPC-PC relationship is ironclad unless the PC decides to end it (kicking them out of the party, picking dialogue to end the relationship) or its an element of the plot ("oh noes, my romance was with the villain the entire time!" *choke*). It - to me - makes the characters less like characters and just an extension of the players will.1 And its one, I think, that could address a lot of why people feel dissatisfied with them and see them as mini-games (say the right dialogue, get a sex scene or fade to black). A well written NPC could have an equally interesting romance/non-romance path and the NPC could be given a lot of logical reasons to start (or accept) a romance and continue or end it. Not trivial, but I think if romance is going to move from the current mixed perceptions to something that's an interesting design for the character and for the player to deal with from the perception of their PC, its a necessary step to take. 1And yes I acknowledge that if the PC is given tactical command directly of the NPC, as in PoE games, they are literally an extension of the players will in combat.

That's actually good and I think I can understand this. But now I would like to know in which way does this apply to Fenris? It's been quite a long while since I last played Dragon Age 2. If Hawke is really pro slavery and Fenris falls for him nevertheless, then yes I would see your point. It doesn't apply to Fenris, I was trying to make a general example using characters that existed and the analogy went splat like trying to toss pizza dough does when you're trying to toss pizza dough the first time. So to sum up, I was trying to talk in general terms, not about Fenris-Isabela-Hawke specifically as they existed in DA2. And I'm crap at explaining things. So my analogy is more about relationships being a two way street. I may be attracted to A, B, and C. But A is attracted to 1 and 2, B is attracted to 3 & 4, and C is attracted to 5 and me. Then the only possible relationship I'm getting at that time at least and maybe if things work out, is with C. But with video games, if the PC is attracted to A, B, and C then A, B, and C rarely have a choice as whether they are attracted to the PC from a character standpoint outside some rather broad gatekeepers (gender and race, sometimes). They lack definition in that part of their character that can create a rather large disconnect between who they say they are on the page and how they actually act. Let me use this as another example. PC has begun a romance with NPC42. NPC42 keeps dying in combat and has to be resurrected (or gets knocked out and awakened after combat depending on your system). Why is NPC42 still following the PC, much less in a romance with them? Currently the way romances are handled NPC42 would never break the romance off because the PC kept putting them in vulnerable, unprotected positions in combat. But shouldn't they?

I don't think not wanting to lock people out of content is a necessarily a good excuse; I'd say its an argument for having only a single relationship path if you don't have the resources to create a viable and interesting character whether the player romances the NPC or not; its like saying "We don't want to have an evil path, because it'll lock good path players out of content" instead of "we don't have an evil path because we don't have the resources to do it" and maybe only marginally better than "our evil path is the good path, but everyone is more frowny when you are evil". I don't see any problem in that. I can imagine that someone can fall in love with two very different people for very different reasons. Fenris may very well like Isabela for some complete different reasons than the reasons for liking Hawke. And actually that makes it interesting to me. Because he doesn't have that one type. There are so many people who would reject someone because they are not their type that I find it refreshing to meet someone who'd be more open minded. Also what do you think of people who simply refuse to label their sexuality? Is their character any less complete? What if someone simply doesn't want to call themselves bisexual or gay or hetero or asexual or whatever (independently from what their sexuality actually is). What if they simply don't want to label it? Does only make a fixed label, that they openly declare, their character worthy? Yes people can have more than one type, my point is that an NPC liking the player regardless of who the player is or what the player does is having no type. The character is no longer a character but a sock puppet for the whims of the player. And I find that to be an unfortunate thing. Moving away from specific characters, because I seem to not be able to get across my point well that way, If NPC A likes NPC B because she's a free spirit, then liking the PC because he has expressed free-spiritedness can work. Liking the PC because he helped free NPC A from slavery also works if you're going for the relationship blooming from that start. It doesn't work as much if the PC is a slaver and NPC A ignores it; it violates the established NPC A liking free-spiritedness and it also violates the idea of the NPC falling for the PC for freeing them from bondage. At that point NPC A isn't a character anymore because whatever has been established about NPC A is thrown aside in favor of having the player get the relationship dialogue from NPC A simply because the player wants it.

That's part of the season pass. Also part of the season pass is the day 1 pee into a cup at the clinic DLC. Are you sure you're not playing American Peeing Simulator rather than American Trucking SImulator?

Or play it casual and pretend your playing those Shining Force sequels we'll never get because SEGA.

I'm probably explaining it poorly, but let me try it this way-- We know that at some point, Fenris can become interested in Isabela. Granted some of that development happens off-screen. Now the player they can be the opposite of Isabela in personality, temperment, interests and still interest Fenris. So with respect to the Player, Fenris has no standards. He's playersexual. This mean that Fenris doesn't really have a character based interest in the player, the player subsumes his character under their will. To be honest this can even be applied to the single sex and/or single race romances as well, its just got a gender/race based condition on it but the essence of the romance being solely the player's choice, not an element of character remains. What I'd like to see would be an advancement of criteria; if a Fenris-like character has an established interest in an Isabela-like character in the game, this should be based on the interests and attractions of the Fenris-like character; then if the player also does or says things that match this interest, then the player also can meet the interest of the Fenris-like character. That doesn't necessarily mean gender for bisexual character, but perhaps expressing dialogue choices/worldview that are similar or consistant (to attract) or too dissimilar or inconsistant (to not attract). That would make the Fenris-like character's pursuit/acceptance/continuation of a romance with the player seem to be more a part of his character and not the PC clicking the right dialogue option to go forward or deny the romance per their will. It'd also (theoretically if implemented correctly) cut off the Fenris-like NPC from flirting with everyone, by narrowing down who they flirt with to a consistent personality design ("I know you just slaughtered all of the puppies in town, and I'm the puppy avenger, but since you've deigned to talk to me, I find you really hot right now >...")

I did play the Fenris romance (I played all of them because I liked DA2 an awful lot despite its flaws). That was a long time ago; I also wasn't trying to argue what happened so much as use Fenris-Isabela-Player to illustrate the problem I see rather than talk about what actually happened in the game specifically (other than going from memory that Fenris doesn't go after Isabela if the Player goes after Fenris). But you are probably right in that the episodic nature of DA2 (jumping it time several times) makes any of the characters a poor example since so much of the development can be left to the time gaps. RE: Aveline what I liked was that you could try, even though it was obviously doomed. I appreciated that they let the player fail rather than succeed in wooing her from Donnic. She turned me down before she ever discovered Donnic. I recall thinking that she was so much cooler than Hawke that she should have been the real hero of DA2. I don't recall her turning me down so much as being oblivious whenever it was brought up.

So to my mind - rightly or wrongly - for an NPC character to be a true character in their own right, they have to actually have some consistent standard of behavior. They can't have that if they're programmed to always like the player regardless of who the player is. To my mind the playersexual NPC is part of the same problem of a good NPC having a relationship with a known evil PC. You don't have a character, you have something that exists due to player's whim. YMMV. I can't really say I followed DA2's development closely (bioware's changing boards was too much for me, so I just followed loosely the development), so you may be right about Fenris being built around the m/m romance. But to my mind, since you mention Fenris being attracted to Isabela - at no point in the game, if you show interest in Fenris, will he ever as a character choose Isabela over you (yes I know a real romance isn't written there, the principle remains, I think). This means that Fenris' character is sublimated to the player's choice. This makes him less of a character, to me. Had he been written as bisexual natively, you could establish that he was attracted to the player and Isabela both and dealt with that as part of the romance, even including a point where - based on your actions - he chooses to not romance either of you or tries to start a romance with Isabela instead of you. It'd be a deeper investment into his character. But this is a subset problem, in general, because almost all characters are written as playersexual to greater or lesser degrees at the moment (unless they're NOT romance options). One of the greatest things DA2 did IMO was to allow you to flirt - and fail - with Avelline, to be honest. It made her character feel stronger to me than any of the others because it made her characterization consistent.